Wing Administrator/Wing Financial Analyst - Support?

[A.Member]

These two roles support the Wings but are actually paid NHQ employees.  This puts them in a unique position.  They are responsible for completing work on a daily basis to support the Wings.   My question is, who is responsible for providing them with technical resouces and more importantly technical support (ie IT help desk, etc) to complete their daily job?

I've searched and cannot find any thing that even remotely provides a true black and white answer to this question.   The closest statement is in the Wing Commander's Financial Guide that Wing Administrator's can't work from home.  Thus, implying they must have an office somewhere. 

Anyone able to offer some clear insight/direction.  As NHQ employees, seems this should be mapped out somewhere.

[Eclipse]

I would have assumed IT support would be done by the wing ITO.

At least it is in my wing - the WA's office is at Wing HQ.

Never heard of a WFA.

[sardak]

The WFAs I'm familiar with are all assigned to NHQ, and I believe work from virtual offices since they can access most of the financial stuff remotely. I would guess that IT support comes from NHQ.

I happened to come across this just today looking for something else. From AFI 10-2701, "Organization and Function of the Civil Air Patrol"

3.4. Wing Administrators and Wing Financial Analysts. The Air Force may provide funds for compensation, travel, per diem, and allowances for a Wing Administrator at each CAP wing and Wing Financial Analysts on a regional basis. The Wing Administrators and Financial Analysts provide administrative and program support to CAP in order to facilitate compliance with CAP's obligations under the CA [Cooperative Agreement] and SOW [Statement of Work]. Both the Wing Administrator and Wing Financial Analyst positions are necessary to fulfill Air Force requirements. Wing administrators are considered CAP Corporation National Headquarters employees.

Mike

[Eclipse]

By WFA, are you talking about the auditors that make the rounds on a regular basis?

[sardak]

Yes, but there is also a lot of contact with them by phone and email.

Mike

[A.Member]

I would have assumed IT support would be done by the wing ITO.

At least it is in my wing - the WA's office is at Wing HQ.

Never heard of a WFA.

So, when they can't print to a printer, their computer doesn't boot up in the am, network issues, etc.  you have a Wing volunteer on call to assist them?

[Eclipse]

Correct, or at least as "on call" as the wing ITO is for any other problems at Wing HQ.

[raivo]

As a former corporate IT guy, I'm cringing at the notion of having paid employees reliant on unpaid volunteers for IT support... but I guess if it works, it works.

[Eclipse]

A lot of those "unpaid volunteers" are actually highly paid IT professionals in their day jobs.

[A.Member]

A lot of those "unpaid volunteers" are actually highly paid IT professionals in their day jobs.

Curious to hear from others.   

I tend to have the same viewpoint as raivo.  Are there capable people in the organization?  Probably.  Do they live in reasonable distance, have the help desk skills, and willingness/ability to provide that support?  That's another question and one we currently grapple with, especially when even trying t fill the Wing IT role.  There's turn-over.  How one person does things is not how another would.  And there's not exactly a line of people wanting to take on a help desk role in this capacity.

It begs the bigger question, how/why do we have paid resources in a role with no reliable infrastructure/support model for them.

[Eclipse]

It begs the bigger question, how/why do we have paid resources in a role with no reliable infrastructure/support model for them.

Who says we don't?

It sounds like you have, or are aware of, a specific issue.

Like comm people, you can't swing a dead cat in a room of CAP members and not hit at least one IT guy.
Granted, that also means there are a lot of "opinions" (BTDT), but basic breakfix and similar are not usually
much of an issue.  I've had some fairly spirited discussions about which platform(s) are appropriate for CAP to be using,
and some of our people can tend to "over" things, but the web is the web, etc.

The wing admin and WFA's roles aren't exactly technically challenging.  In most cases, as long as you can get online and
to email, and Quickbooks works, that's your day.

This is, however, one of the reasons I constantly advocate free services like Google, etc., for groupware and web hosting,
precisely because it takes zero knowledge to admin, and the tech support is generally pretty robust.  The systems live
outside any personalities, and aren't "under Tim's desk".

[JeffDG]

A lot of those "unpaid volunteers" are actually highly paid IT professionals in their day jobs.

And are happy to lend their years/decades of experience when a phone call comes in.

[Al Sayre]

My wife is our Wing Administrator, she just calls me when something doesn't work...

[FW]

Last time I dealt with such issues:

Wing Financial Analysts are employed by CAP NHQ, and report to the CFO of CAP, as a member of the FM staff, to insure complience with financial regulations and policies of the organization.  They work from NHQ (for the most part), however they visit wings when needed. 

Wing adminsitrators are employed by CAP NHQ, and report to the Wing Commander.  They are responsible for day to day financial and logistics administration.  They coordinate with the Wing director of Finance, and the wing Logistics officer for guidence.

[Private Investigator]

My wife is our Wing Administrator, she just calls me when something doesn't work...

Best answer.

When I first retired from the police department I thought about applying for WA to supplement my retirement. 

[Private Investigator]

These two roles support the Wings but are actually paid NHQ employees.  This puts them in a unique position. 

Every Wing is different but at mine, its 'casual Friday' every day. 

[raivo]

A lot of those "unpaid volunteers" are actually highly paid IT professionals in their day jobs.

I'm not arguing that, I'm saying that it seems to me like an potential flaw in the system to have paid corporate employees relying on volunteers for tech support.

But again, if it works, it works.

[FW]

"Tech" support?  The Wing Administrators "depend" on NHQ for any technical support which is needed to accomplish their job.  For software problems, a phone call to the IT department is all that is necessary.  For hardware support, the same. If there is a volunteer that can help, great. "Depend", however is not a word I would use (Al is an exception...)

[Tim Medeiros]

Like comm people, you can't swing a dead cat in a room of CAP members and not hit at least one IT guy.

While true, it is also worth noting that there is more than one "flavor" when it comes to IT guys/gals.  You've got programmers (and all of their subflavors depending on the language they use), networks folks, designers, engineers, ops folks, security types, managers and your front-line support folks.  For some of those you may have to duplicate things based on the flavor of OS, whether it be Windows, *nix, or Mac.  Not to mention the folks who say they are IT because they can successfully navigate a program install (seen it happen).

[NIN]

I don't know, I am an IT guy in my day job, I'm doing support for small companies etc. Managed services. Non-profits, doctors offices etc.  The last thing I want to do for CAP is my day job .

That being said, if my wing administrator called me on the phone to tell me she was having a problem, I would help her.

Speaking of dead cats, I live dead cat swinging distance from wing headquarters. Seriously. I can walk there. In 5 minutes.

But more to the point, organizations pay for on call technical support all the time. Especially for their paid staff. Why should CAP be any different?  Even down so far as the wing level.

As a man once said, " speed is just a question of money. How fast do you wanna go? " Is it appropriate for a wing administrator to sit in the office twiddling his or her thumbs waiting on a volunteer?

[FW]

^ No, it's not appropriate, and it just doesn't happen.  WA's have ready access to CAP/FM, LG, and IT for tech support.
Ms. Easter and Mr. Snyder do great things at NHQ.  The WA's do great things at the wing.  This is definately not an issue...

[NIN]

^ No, it's not appropriate, and it just doesn't happen.  WA's have ready access to CAP/FM, LG, and IT for tech support.
Ms. Easter and Mr. Snyder do great things at NHQ.  The WA's do great things at the wing.  This is definately not an issue...

Cool. Thats great to hear.  When a wing administrator runs into a tech issue that they can rely on HQ resources is a force multiplier.

(Before Wing Administrators were paid CAP employees, ours was a paid state employee and anything computer related at the HQ was handled by me and another guy... The needs were less back then, but still... There were times when the WA had to sit on her hands until one of us could spend time at HQ and fix things up.  This was before remote tools, etc.)

[A.Member]

This is definately not an issue...

Strong non-concur.  It is indeed an issue, perhaps not for all Wings due to volunteer commitment but it certainly is for others. 

Ex. when a WA is not able to connect to a printer any longer (maybe an IP conflict on a wireless printer), a remote employee at NHQ is expected to resolve this?   How about when internet connection is not available?  National will troubleshoot and potentially repair this connection?  These are realand recurring issues I'm aware of.  I'm not aware that NHQ has signed on for such support.

I am very much in agreement that this level of support goes beyond that of our volunteers.  Situations that result in a scenario like the one NIN described is unsat.  A paid employee should not be dependant on a volunteer (Wing staff member that may geographically be located a significant distance from the WA/Wing HQ) for a solution.  It is an issue that National needs to address. 

[JeffDG]

A paid employee should not be dependant on a volunteer (Wing staff member that may geographically be located a significant distance from the WA/Wing HQ) for a solution.  It is an issue that National needs to address.

Why not?

Seriously...why can we not make use of the volunteer professionals we have spread throughout the country to provide support and assistance to the paid employees.

The alternative seems to be incredibly expensive, in that you would have roving bands of IT personnel at each wing HQ to assist WAs.

WAs depend upon volunteers for supervision and direction (Wing/CCs), it's not that big of a deal to have them get some IT help once in a while too.

[A.Member]

A paid employee should not be dependant on a volunteer (Wing staff member that may geographically be located a significant distance from the WA/Wing HQ) for a solution.  It is an issue that National needs to address.

Why not?

For the reasons outlined in the thread earlier. 

There are different levels of IT skill sets.  Can you realistically always have a resource that possesses all the skill sets required available to support a paid employee (who is expected to produce daily) with an acceptable SLA?  While some Wings may be able to meet this, I assure you that many cannot.  I speak first hand that our Wing doesn't have a line of people waiting to take on IT at a Wing level and turnover/burnout is always concern.  Do we have talented people in the Wing? Of course we do.   But like NIN, for many, the last thing they want to do is more of their day job.

To illustrate the point about relying on Wing IT further, just do a quick search and take a look at various Wing websites.   How well are they really maintained?   Now think about the support needed for mission critical tasks - ie paying the bills.  Providing supervision and work direction to a paid employee is not tantamount to providing timely and effective help desk/IT support.

Do I have a solution to this issue?  No.   I have a few ideas.   Do they all cost money?  Yes and that would be something that National would need to sort out.

[JeffDG]

A paid employee should not be dependant on a volunteer (Wing staff member that may geographically be located a significant distance from the WA/Wing HQ) for a solution.  It is an issue that National needs to address.

Why not?

For the reasons outlined in the thread earlier.  There are different levels of IT skill sets.  Can you realistically always have a resource that possesses all the skill sets required available to support a paid employee (who is expected to produce daily) with an acceptable SLA?  While some Wings may be able to meet this, I assure you that many cannot.  I speak first hand that our Wing doesn't have a line of people that are lined up to take on IT at a Wing level and turnover is concern.  Do we have talented people in the Wing? Of course we do.   But like NIN, the last thing they want to do is more of their day job.

To illustrate this point, just do a quick search and take a look at various Wing websites.   How well are they really maintained?   Now think about the support needed for mission critical tasks - ie paying the bills.

OK, so let's look at the standard you've set...supporting within an SLA.

Yes, NHQ can handle a lot of stuff remotely.  Fantastic.

What do you propose for the items that require local hands-on?  Unless you're in Alabama Wing, I'll bet good money that you can find a volunteer a helluva lot closer than NHQ to take care of those items, unless you're going to go and hire a bunch of IT folks to work in all the Wing HQs.

[FW]

Wings must provide office space and an internet connection for WA's.  That is the extent of it. NHQ provides all other support.  A phone call to national is not difficult, however what is the problem if a volunteer is readily available to fix a connection issue?  We are, after all, a team.  Life need not get too complicated; Oh, wait a minute, this is CT! What was I thinking...

[NIN]

Something to think about with this whole thing is that there are many support organizations that do remote technical support from hundreds of miles away. With the appropriate tools, you can yet most support needs done without ever setting foot in the physical location.

However, again we are still talking about time and availability. If my wing administrator has a problem with the internet connection at 9 am and cannot log onto a remote app she has to use, how long is she going to wait to have the problem addressed? Is national headquarters responsible for ensuring that a wings internet connection remains up? Maybe, maybe not.

Is there a local guy who is going to briefly troubleshoot with the WA and then say "you need to call the ISP?" 

I support about a dozen organizations. We either do contract basis management of PCs and servers, or we do time and materials. Pretty standard. Some of my time and material customers don't talk to me for months at a time. And that's the way they want it. They don't need a daily or monthly support contract. They only need me for an hour every other month or so. Sure it cost them a hundred dollars an hour for my time on the phone. Does that get the more or less support then they would have gotten on a contract? Maybe, maybe not. Depends on the kind of issues they have, the complexity of their network, the robustness of their network, how technically savvy the WA really is, whether or not there is somebody nearby who can be remote hands, etcetera.

I don't know, I bet some wings have service contracts with managed service providers like mine. Maybe some wings rely on the largess of a member who is retired or otherwise available during the day. Maybe the wing IT guy has the ability to take a phone call at a moments notice from a WA.

No matter what however, as has been alluded to, an SLA and impact to the administrator must be considered. Maybe a wing is okay with their WA sitting on their hands all day, waiting for the local IT guy to get off work.  You get what you pay for. If you want four hour SLA, it costs money in most instances. Again, may be your wing has an IT guy with a ton of time on his hands just around the corner.  Awesome. Maybe your wing has no IT expertise within 100 miles. Not awesome.

By the way, just because an employee in a remote office is an employee of a larger entity does not mean that the larger entity always provides tech support.  Certainly that should be a part of the business plan, and factory in to either the cost of doing business or pushed down to the local level as needed. I have done plenty of support for small insurance or investment offices. The parent company doesn't supply anything but a portal for them to access. As long as the portal is up, the overarching entity considers their job done. Beyond that, get some local support.


I can't imagine the national headquarters IT shop is doing a lot of field support. Have you looked at the organizational chart lately? Not a lot of depth to do Application Support, application development, headquarters support, desktop support, network support, and IT management along with supporting 50 plus employees far afield.

Again, no ding on them. They have their own bailiwick within the walls of 105 S. Hansell St.  If the COO says " your focus is here " then that's that.

[A.Member]

OK, so let's look at the standard you've set...supporting within an SLA.

Yes, NHQ can handle a lot of stuff remotely.  Fantastic.

What do you propose for the items that require local hands-on?  Unless you're in Alabama Wing, I'll bet good money that you can find a volunteer a helluva lot closer than NHQ to take care of those items, unless you're going to go and hire a bunch of IT folks to work in all the Wing HQs.

It may be a bit of a leap to assume NHQ can handle a lot of issues remotely.   How is your Wing's network set up?  Is that same as all the other Wings?  What OS are they using?  Hardware?  Backups?  And so on.   Can some of these be handled remotely?  Probably.  How about the one's that can't?  Who does that? 

Options?  IT support can be contracted out.   National could set up a cloud service or an electronic payment system that removes printing and keeps core functions standardized and centralized.  National could provide internet service to the WA/Wing so that issues there are contractually resolved by the service provider.  Etc.  There are pros/cons to all these and a solution may actually be a multi-layered one (ie utilize two or more of these approaches).

[JeffDG]

OK, so let's look at the standard you've set...supporting within an SLA.

Yes, NHQ can handle a lot of stuff remotely.  Fantastic.

What do you propose for the items that require local hands-on?  Unless you're in Alabama Wing, I'll bet good money that you can find a volunteer a helluva lot closer than NHQ to take care of those items, unless you're going to go and hire a bunch of IT folks to work in all the Wing HQs.

It may be a bit of a leap to assume NHQ can handle a lot of issues remotely.   How is your Wing's network set up?  Is that same as all the others?  What OS are they using?  And so on.   Can some of these be handled remotely?  Probably.  How about the one's that can't?  Who does that? 

Options?  IT support can be contracted out.   National could set up a cloud service or an electronic payment system that removes printing and keeps core functions standardized and centralized.  National could provide internet service to the WA/Wing so that issues there are contractually resolved by the service provider.  Etc.  There are pros/cons to all these and a solution may actually be a multi-layered one (ie utilize two or more of these approaches).

OK.

Which employees is NHQ going to let go to pay for this support, that can be offered for free in most wings?  Just curious.  You're right...having paid professionals is better.  But, the budget is incredibly tight, and if you want to add that support, it's gotta come from somewhere.  So, please, enlighten us as to where it should come from.

And if you are tempted to say "From the Wing", well, my wing has at least 4-6 people within 30 minutes of Wing HQ who are more qualified to support just about anything than anything you're going to contract out for a reasonable fee...and they're quite happy to help out when required.  Support in-depth can be done with volunteers too...

[A.Member]

OK, so let's look at the standard you've set...supporting within an SLA.

Yes, NHQ can handle a lot of stuff remotely.  Fantastic.

What do you propose for the items that require local hands-on?  Unless you're in Alabama Wing, I'll bet good money that you can find a volunteer a helluva lot closer than NHQ to take care of those items, unless you're going to go and hire a bunch of IT folks to work in all the Wing HQs.

It may be a bit of a leap to assume NHQ can handle a lot of issues remotely.   How is your Wing's network set up?  Is that same as all the others?  What OS are they using?  And so on.   Can some of these be handled remotely?  Probably.  How about the one's that can't?  Who does that? 

Options?  IT support can be contracted out.   National could set up a cloud service or an electronic payment system that removes printing and keeps core functions standardized and centralized.  National could provide internet service to the WA/Wing so that issues there are contractually resolved by the service provider.  Etc.  There are pros/cons to all these and a solution may actually be a multi-layered one (ie utilize two or more of these approaches).

OK.

Which employees is NHQ going to let go to pay for this support, that can be offered for free in most wings?  Just curious.  You're right...having paid professionals is better.  But, the budget is incredibly tight, and if you want to add that support, it's gotta come from somewhere.  So, please, enlighten us as to where it should come from.

And if you are tempted to say "From the Wing", well, my wing has at least 4-6 people within 30 minutes of Wing HQ who are more qualified to support just about anything than anything you're going to contract out for a reasonable fee...and they're quite happy to help out when required.  Support in-depth can be done with volunteers too...

Don't disagree with your point and that's the challenge to this issue.  It's not an easy, straightforward answer.   A potential solution may come in a variety of forms but it's one that's incumbent on National to resolve; it's their employees we're talking about.   It becomes more problematic with a greater reliance on technology

[FW]

The question of who is responsible for "help desk" support to WA's/WFA's is answered in one word; "COO".  All Wing adminsistrators should know what to do for the type of support mentioned above.  I've hired two over the years.  I understood what my responsibility was and, what was not.  I did have to insure internet connectivity.  Everything else was handled by NHQ; either remotely or by contractor.  It was never an issue for me.  Problems rarely, if ever, occured.
Even with tight budgets, I haven't seen any communications asking the volunteers to step in to provide tech support to any NHQ employee.

[A.Member]

The question of who is responsible for "help desk" support to WA's/WFA's is answered in one word; "COO".  All Wing adminsistrators should know what to do for the type of support mentioned above.  I've hired two over the years.  I understood what my responsibility was and, what was not.  I did have to insure internet connectivity.  Everything else was handled by NHQ; either remotely or by contractor.  It was never an issue for me.  Problems rarely, if ever, occured.
Even with tight budgets, I haven't seen any communications asking the volunteers to step in to provide tech support to any NHQ employee.

So, the question becomes were you the exception or the rule (note: I don't necessarily disagree with your viewpoint but also don't know that's a true expectation for all)?   While you may not have seen such communications, I have.  Thus the basis for this thread. 

[Eclipse]

So again, context is needed.

In my wing, the WA sits in the front office at Wing HQ.  Connectivity is provided by the wing, and supported locally by the volunteer staff,
so if the internet is "down", they first call would be to them, not NHQ.  Likewise for printing, general break/fix, etc.

I don't see the problem with this, that's what the Wing IT folks are supposed to be doing, unless you're saying
you have a WA who can't get help.

[Spaceman3750]

I don't know, I am an IT guy in my day job, I'm doing support for small companies etc. Managed services. Non-profits, doctors offices etc.  The last thing I want to do for CAP is my day job .

+1, same boat, managed services, don't feel like being Mr. Break-fix for CAP. I'm happy to help out with a network project, but otherwise my focus is elsewhere.

[Eclipse]

I don't know, I am an IT guy in my day job, I'm doing support for small companies etc. Managed services. Non-profits, doctors offices etc.  The last thing I want to do for CAP is my day job .

+1, same boat, managed services, don't feel like being Mr. Break-fix for CAP. I'm happy to help out with a network project, but otherwise my focus is elsewhere.

Fair enough for both of you, but neither of you, to my understanding, have that role.  Someone else accepted it.